LAHORE – Richard Linklater had made many weep with his trilogy of ‘Before Sunrise’ which was starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. However, how many of you knew of the overwhelming fact that Richard had made the movie by being inspired by a real life encounter he had with Amy Lehrhaupt?
Here is the real life star of the movie. Amy.
Unlike the fictional “Before” characters Celine and Jesse, Richard and Amy tried to keep their relationship going after their initial meeting in 1989 but the long distance romance fizzled out in some time.
Amy had died in a motorcycle accident when she was just 24 in 1994. Richard had to still find out about her death till years later when a friend put the puzzle together and realized what the movie was conveying. He then informed Richard of the tragedy he had no knowledge of, in fact he had been waiting for Amy to attend one of the screenings!
In Richard’s own words:
“I just got to talking to her and then we went out later and hung out the whole night….We walked around downtown from midnight until six in the morning. It was our own nooks-and-crannies tour of Philadelphia. But all the time I was thinking, `There’s a movie here.”
“Even as that experience was going on … I was like, “I’m gonna make a film about this.” And she was like, “What ‘this’? What’re you talking about?” And I was like, “Just this. This feeling. This thing that’s going on between us.”
Turns out, Amy never saw the movie that was inspired by her existence in Richard’s life.
